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UCLA Athletics To Add Women's Rowing In 2001-02

Los Angeles - UCLA Director of Athletics Peter T. Dalis announced February 9, 2001 that UCLA will add women's rowing as an intercollegiate sport effective with the 2001-2002 school year. The UCLA athletic program currently consists of 21 sports - 11 women's teams and 10 men's teams - and has won more NCAA and national team championships than any other university.

The decision to add the sport of women's rowing, currently a club sport at UCLA, is the main component of a Voluntary Resolution Plan submitted by the University to the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR). The two entities have worked together in an in-depth analysis of the UCLA athletic program since December of 1998 when the California Chapter of the National Organization of Women filed a complaint with the Region IX Office for Civil Rights alleging that UCLA was not in compliance with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

The subsequent analysis of the entire UCLA athletic program by OCR found that UCLA does, in fact, treat its male and female athletes in an equitable manner. Even though the women's rate of participation in athletics at UCLA has increased by nine percentage points over the last three academic years, OCR expressed concern that the ratio of female athletic participants was not in proportion to the ratio of female undergraduates enrolled at the University. The female undergraduate enrollment has increased by nearly three percent over that same time period. This local trend in female enrollment growth reflects national trends at large public universities in recent years.

By adding rowing as an intercollegiate sport for women, UCLA is concurrently addressing the athletics interests of its female students and the increasing rate of female enrollment.